Easter During a Pandemic; Life as a Writer During Lockdown, and Pink Supermoon with April Flowers

Pink Apple Blossoms

Happy Easter to Those Who Celebrate: Wishing Us All a Little Bit of Sunshine, Flowers, Chocolate

From Palm Sunday to Passover to today, Easter, we have had a bunch of holidays to celebrate without family, without places of worship. This morning, the weather is beautiful, but the parks are also closed to house-bound children and stir-crazy adults. I’ve been seeking out flowers in abandoned parking lots of shuttered banks, schools, and offices.

Me with pink hair and pink apple blossoms

We have reached that part of the quarantine (Glenn and I have been locked down since late February, a little earlier than everyone else) where we start coloring our hair and trying home haircuts (I did my own bangs and Glenn’s hair with pretty good results.) Here’s a picture of my new hair while trying to camouflage with a pink apple tree.

It’s hard to celebrate during a pandemic. We are reading death counts every day. Here in Washington, over 10,000 coronavirus cases and almost 500 deaths. Other areas of the country are harder hit. I have a friend in London, and there are 10,000 deaths in the UK. I try to concentrate on small things; my breath, the birds in my backyard, the slow unfolding of spring flowers. Glenn practices new recipes with the food we find in our cupboard (now we’re depending on deliveries, so we’re trying to make groceries go farther.) We have to decide if that pain in our tooth is an emergency. We try not to mourn the things we cannot do. We try to sleep without nightmares.

Striped Tulips

The Writer’s Life During Lockdown

I was thinking about life as a writer during lockdown, especially as a writer with a compromised immune system. Playing it safe is no joke for me. I’ve been writing quite a bit, reading too, and doing recordings of poems (so far, for Tacoma’s Poet Laureate Abby Murray, Moon City Press – Jeannine Hall Gailey reads “Post-Apocalypse Postcard with Love Note”, and EcoTheo.)

I thought this blog post I wrote a few years ago for Trish Hopkinson’s blog might be helpful for those of you trying to figure out how to promote your new poetry book during quarantine – I wrote this for those with disabilities and chronic illness in mind, but some things are very similar – like the inability to travel or do in-person readings: How To Promote Your Book with a Chronic Illness or Disability.

Flicker in the Planter

I’ve been sending out work tentatively, as it feels hard to believe that poetry can be important in such a time of crisis. On the other hand, I’ve been buying books from local bookstores to keep them in business, subscribing to lit mags even with the post office being threatened by the President and his bullying GOP with shutdown. (Write to your congressperson to protest this lack of funding for the Post office, the lack of which would make us effectively a third-world country, and would prevent voting by mail.) So many things are uncertain: when will we be able to get out of lockdown? When will we have a treatment, much less a vaccine? When will the death tolls start to dwindle? How will this hurt people’s mental health and the economy? Uncertainty is difficult for human beings to sustain for long amounts of time. Poetry and music seem to offer some comfort for me as they resist certainty, and encourage us to dwell in possibility.

Pink tulip magnolia

Pink Supermoons and April Flowers

We had a supermoon this week, the closest the moon will be to use this year, a Pink Moon. The spring magnolias are in bloom, apple and pear trees, daffodils, early tulips. Here is the gallery from this week. I think about the good things that might come from this global shutdown: clear skies in previously smoggy cities like LA, mass sea turtle egg laying and panda mating with the lack of humans in zoos and beaches, a decrease in crime and traffic deaths. Maybe we can hope for good to come from this pandemic horror: in the future companies will encourage more telecommuting, schools will allow students who want to to study from home, and people in general will become more aware of the threats to the immune-suppressed. I wish you health and peace this week, and flowers, and moonrise.

: Pear or apple blossoms

: Deer with white cherry trees

: Pink Supermoon Rise

: Me with Star Magnolia

April Hours, National Poetry Month, and Four More Weeks of Quarantine: How Are You Holding Up?

Pink Tulips, Woodinville

April Hours – Flowers, Birds, Masks

April is here, finally, though here, it still has felt more like winter than spring – chilly, rainy days in the forties. Washington State has extended its “Stay at Home” order until May 4, so my birthday month may not be very cheerful after all. The US has overtaken the rest of the world in coronavirus cases. Especially hard hit are NYC, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

Me, socially distancing with cherry blossoms

Because it’s April, even though we’re socially distancing and (finally) being advised to wear masks, we can still watch birds and enjoy the flowers that continue to bloom despite the news and less-than-welcoming weather. I’ve been practicing taking pictures of the new birds we’ve been attracting with our feeders: juncos, wrens, Stellar’s Jays, flickers, and downy woodpeckers this week. The cherry trees and camellias are in their last days (we had a couple of hailstorms that are hard on the flowers) and early tulips are starting to bloom. Usually we’d go up to Skagit Valley for the Skagit Tulip Festival but it’s been cancelled this year. I also would have been planning a birthday party, but I guess it will wait til next year. The new reality is, we are stuck by ourselves, where we are, until further notice. Luckily, where we are includes the spring rollout of birdsong and blossoms.

: Downy Woodpecker

: Pink Cherry with blue sky

: Northern Flicker

: Single pink and yellow tul

Pink tulip magnolias

National Poetry Month

We can still celebrate National Poetry Month during a pandemic, despite the lack of the usual book launch parties and poetry readings. There are still books to buy (support your local bookstore if you can) and there is time to spend on poetry, and even some hope to be found. People are doing readings on Facebook Live (I’ve been enjoying talks on Japanese fairy tales by Rebecca Solnit) and offering readings on YouTube and podcasts instead of in-person. I’ve been writing too many pandemic poems. It seems almost impossible to write a poem about one thing and not have it turn into a pandemic poem, in fact. The coronavirus has saturated the view.

My bio page for Poetry Magazine

Poetry Magazine is offering its April issue for free right now. I really like the picture they chose for my bio page, which is from a visit to the aforementioned Skagit Poetry Festival last year. It reminds me of happier times. Also, if you visit my bio page, click on “Prose by this Poet” and you can read my interview with Matthea Harvey about her apocalyptic book of poetry, Modern Life. Here’ s a peek at my second poem in the April Poetry issue, “Spellcaster,” a little less apocalyptic than “Calamity.”

Spellcaster, from April’s issue of Poetry Magazine

Four More Weeks of Quarantine: How Are You Holding Up?

So, as we face four more weeks of quarantine, how are you holding up? I know some friends who are making cloth masks for friends and family, people who are delivering groceries to older neighbors and relatives, people who are using this time to try a new art form or learn a language, while other friends are practicing the challenging transition to becoming online teachers and homeschoolers. We are all learning to make more things from scratch; friends are exchanging recipes for they have in their pantry as people try to limit trips for groceries. Others are spending time in their gardens – we have planted herb starts and spring peas (which don’t happen here till June). Many of us are donating to new charities because of coronavirus – people who have lost their jobs in the massive wave of layoffs, food banks for people who can’t afford groceries, and Medical Teams International, a personal favorite, who is currently using a mobile truck unit to practice dentistry for free on emergency cases across Seattle.

I am reading books and listening to audiobooks, spending time of the phone with family to check in, trying to come to terms with Zoom, and listening to a lot of music. I’ve tried not to watch too much television or movies at the beginning of this, try to spend some time walking outside or on my stationary bike or dancing around to movie soundtracks (I recommend the new Birds of Prey movie soundtrack.) Of course I am worried about getting this thing – and I’m worried about family and friends who are vulnerable. Every day the news delivers more dead – musicians, artists, nurses and doctors. I try to pay attention to the good works of people during this crisis, not our Federal government’s miserable mismanagement of it. It is unbearable to think too many hours a day about it – even with my limited news consumption, I dream every night about fighting coronavirus, people having it, trying to solve the puzzle of this virus’s treatment already.

How about you? What are you doing to make it through? I taught my mom Instagram over the phone yesterday, so she could have baby goat and papillon dog pictures to cheer her up. I’m going to try to get outside more as the weather gets a little nicer, as I notice it helps battle the claustrophobia that can come from too many days at home, trying my best to dodge others who are walking dogs or stretching their legs or letting their kids exercise and shriek and run around. Tell me in the comments about your quarantine life in April.

Spring, Quarantine, Poetry, and All

Early magnolia blossoms

Spring, Quarantine, Poetry, and All

Spring continues its celebrations, despite our mostly silent roads and store fronts, despite humanity’s disappearance from their daily activities. The cherries bloom, the woodpeckers and towhees and stellar jays and hummingbirds are busy. It’s been a cold and gloomy week, but April is almost here.

The big excitement this week was the arrival of a new birdfeeder and the April contributor copies of Poetry Magazine. I’ve been writing and reading more, watching tv less. During the forty-degree, rainy March days of grim reports of deaths and pandemics, it becomes almost impossible to remember anything cheerful. I’ve been practicing my bird photography. I ordered watercolors. I still take pictures of trees.

: Female Towhee

: Stellar Jaw

: Pilieated Woodpecker

Sylvia posing with the April issue of Poetry

A Little More about April’s Issue of Poetry

So, to more cheerful news: April’s issue of Poetry has two poems of mine in it, “Calamity” and “Spellcaster.” Someone asked me: what was the secret of getting into Poetry? Well, I sent to Poetry Magazine the first time when I was 19 years old, and I received a really nice personal rejection in return. I wish I still had it. Then I sent twice a year for a lot of years. I have years of back issues on my bookshelf from years of reading. That’s the secret!

So it’s especially meaningful that these two poems appear in the April issue of National Poetry Month and my birthday month. Also, isn’t Sylvia cute with the magazine? I’ve been finally finishing the final pages of the second volume of Sylvia Plath’s letters, and I see how excited she gets for her poetry checks. I guess I am equally excited, as a poet, when I get a check for seeing my work in print. It doesn’t happen all that often! If you want a reading recommendation for something a little more comforting, check out Rebecca Solnit’s A Paradise Built in Hell, which is a bunch of essays about disasters and people’s responses to them. When calamity does strike, she points out, a lot of bad stuff happens – but also, ordinary people are inspired to help each other in amazing ways. A good reminder.

Cherry tree in bloom, Woodinville

One More Quarantine Poetry Video: “A Letter to John Cusack, Piloting a Plane Through an Apocalypse Movie”

This poem is another apocalypse poem from my book, Field Guide to the End of the World. Bonus points if you can name all the John Cusack movies referenced in the poem.

https://youtu.be/0kX08JK88g0

April Issue of Poetry – with two of my poems!

Sylvia poses with new April issue of Poetry

April Issue of Poetry Has Two of My Poems In It

I always said it would be the apocalypse before I got into Poetry Magazine, so it seems appropriate that yesterday by special delivery in my home during lockdown I received my contributor’s copies of Poetry Magazine, with two of my poems in it, alongside poems by illustrious stars like Ocean Vuong. My kitten Sylvia just would not stop cuddling with Poetry! Which makes sense, since her namesake poet was in there several times.

And here’s a sneak peek at one of the poems, “Calamity.” Interestingly, this apocalyptic poem, “Calamity,” was written and accepted before the current pandemic was a thing. The other poem of mine in this issue is called “Spellcaster.” Both of these poems are from my in-process manuscript, “Fireproof.”

Another Week in the Epicenter Living with Quarantine in Spring, Essay in the Mighty, Poems in Moon City Review, and Now: Poetry Videos

Cherry Branches

Another Week in the Epicenter: Living with Quarantine in Spring

Hello from March 2020 in Seattle, where Coronavirus has killed over 90 people, we still don’t have enough test kits, masks and ventilators are in short supply, and everyone is trying to shelter in place. Quarantine has become common – California, New York, Connectibut and Illinois all have strict policies in place, while in Washington, we’ve been urged but not forced to quarantine ourselves for the time being. All normal activites – shopping, going to work, going to the doctor or dentist – have been halted. All to buy a little more preparation time while we wait for someone – generous billionaires, brilliant scientists, unfortunately probably not our (seriously blundering) government leaders – to find something to treat or slow this virus. Meanwhile I’m seriously trying to stay safe, stay alive, write poems, and take pictures of flowers.

You can read about some of my experiences living as an immune-compromised people in the US epicenter of Coronavirus in this essay at The Mighty. And here are some shots of spring blooming all around us, and a robin.

: Robin

: Red Camellia Blossom

: Pink Cherry Blossom close-up

: double daffodils

St Patrick’s Day

Poems and Reading Lists and St. Patrick’s Day

We celebrated a quiet St. Patrick’s Day at home, taking a stroll through emptied winery grounds and making scones and tea. Glenn and I at least got all dressed up in green for the occasion.

With all the sheltering-in-place, I’ve had plenty of time for reading, and I’ve been really enjoying two new poetry books, both with space themes.

Sylvia with my current poetry reads

Sylvia poses with two brand-new poetry books that I love: John Gallaher‘s Brand New Spacesuit from BOA and The Tilt Torn Away from the Seasons by Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers from Acre Books. I highly recommend both. I’ve read all of John’s books, and this is my favorite so far – reassuring somehow in this odd time, full of humor and hope.

Three New Poems in Moon City Review

Sylvia cuddling with the new issue of Moon City Review

I also got my contributor copes of Moon City Review, with three of my poems in it.

Here’s a sneak preview of one of the poems, as well as Sylvia looking adorable with the issue. Yes, this blog post does feature two pictures of my cat. I have been spending a lot of time cuddling with my two cats and feeling very grateful for that, as well as phone calls and FaceTime with friends and family. Poetry and cats happen to be my coping mechanisms under stress.

Poem from Moon City Review

Did I mention that I was also being tested for cancer and a pretty serious (non-Coronavirus) infection this week? The news wasn’t all good (liver tumors have multiplied and some have grown) but not seriously bad, either (no infection found or giant masses, which was good.) We chronically ill folks have to deal with mortality every day, not just during a pandemic; we are always on guard for things going wrong in our body. It is exhausting, and I know you are exhausted too.

So, in Light of the Quarantine and All, Some Poetry Videos

Someone asked me this week to make a video of me reading a poem for one of her classes. I had never done this before and she showed me how to do it with my iPhone. So, after I made that poetry video, I made a bunch of others. Here are links to a few of them. I am reading from Moon City Press’s Field Guide to the End of the World, poems that seem (though they were written years earlier) to be written for this time.

Here’s me reading “Every Human is a Black Box.”

And here’s me reading “The Last Love Poem.” I hope you enjoy these. Stay well, all of you. Stay in, stay well, read poetry, try to notice the spring.

Easter During a Pandemic; Life as a Writer During Lockdown, and Pink Supermoon with April Flowers